How people get to work with us

Amazing incidents, nice stories, personal effort: How people get to work with us, part one (of at least three, it seems) …

Yes, there is something like an “official” recruiting process at Edenspiekermann: We look for new colleagues via job offers on our website. We send out requests via Twitter. We ask friends or friends of friends for people with skills to support us. But also people do look for us. Actually quite often.

There’s Spiros, for example. He was one of the most persistent in applying: “I read Paul’s keynote post. That was how I first heard of Edenspiekermann. I read more posts and started to follow on Twitter – and I applied, of course. I applied for everything, for one year or so. Then two years later I finally came” – big fat happy smile. And now, working as a web developer at Edenspiekermann, Spiros writes for us himself. Please read his well-acknowledged article on “OOCSS and the Pagification of Modules.”

Individuals working together

And how about Eva’s ESPI story? Having coffee at our Brainfood session one Thursday morning, she tells me how she came to what was called United Designers Network in 2006, Erik Spiekermann’s new design office then – based on a totally new concept of a design office. Eva liked the idea and the whole look of it, “those little rectangles, remember?” And she liked “that it was so flexible – the idea of individuals working together in a network: that was something very special. Erik himself wrote a short characteristic for everyone of his co-workers.“

Johannes Cordes, whom I grab at the water cooler, takes a sip and mumbles “mmh” as I ask him how he got into contact with ESPI. “Well, actually via Pia Betton. Via the IEB, this Institute of Electronic Business, where at that time she was Manager of Applied Research. I had applied there – when I was still working at MetaDesign – and we stayed in contact. And then she was at our Edenspiekermann office on Friedrichstraße. It all happened very quickly, actually.“

So, quickly, who is next? Manfred! “I don’t remember exactly, wait – yes! I wrote an email to Erik personally. He answered that there was a crisis then and not a good moment to employ people” – I know, that was in 2009 – “yes. How I got the idea to do so? I met his ex-wife Joan in Switzerland. That was the first real contact. The actual job I got via Bettina Fackelmann and Michael Börner, both at Meta back then. We just know each other, Bettina, Michael and me. That is how it went. Something like three weeks, then it was done. And then, so typically Erik, you know him, that was really sweet, he said to me: “but it was clear anyway that you would join in”.

For Liv, it took just two “iterations” on Twitter. She based “some slides on an illustration that ESPI did” on agile iterations, in a session on design/developer collaboration. So Robert sent her a tweet. They had a quick twitter dialogue – and shortly after that Liv ended up at our Berlin office: great ideas travel and come back to us!

Some of us come from far away. Like Andrew, a collegue in our Amsterdam office, who wrote: “I was finishing up my university graphic design studies in Utah, in the US. Browsing the web I found Sue Murphey’s (former employee’s) website. From there I found the internship opportunity with Edenspiekermann. I had already completed an internship in NYC (my university requires one internship), but I felt excited and compelled to apply to the vacancy in Amsterdam. I had a Skype call with Marieke and Jeroen – and the video didn’t work – so they just had to judge based on my voice … hahaha. I was selected and completed a three month internship in Amsterdam. After my studies were over, Edenspiekermann invited me back to work with them. I was very excited to return.“

Yeah!

Linda Tetteroo worked at an agency in Rotterdam in her first job after graduation: “Ping-pong did (and still does) projects for Rabobank together with ESPI. I worked a lot for Rabobank then. That’s how we got to know each other. After two years, it was time for a new challenge. And also I wanted to learn and do more online projects. So I got in contact with them. Because of my Rabobank experience and of course my other projects and work they hired me as a visual designer. Yeah!“

Out in the streets

And me? Well. It was a hard Berlin winter and BVG (Berlin public transport) was on strike. Freezing cold, snow at knee level. No biking possible. People standing at the streets, trembling, fighting for taxis. I shared one with a very nice person who turned out to be a Swiss designer, new in town, at a brand-new agency, asking me what I do: “Oh, you are a copy writer? Can I have your name card please?“ She worked at SpiekermannPartners, as I saw on her card, jumping out of that fortune taxi. An incident of maybe five minutes, left me heart beating, SpiekermannPartners (Erik Spiekermann) being the first on my list of favorite agencies – people! – to work with … Soon Stephanie, that designer, organized an interview for me; soon I did my first freelance job (a brand book for Messe Frankfurt); soon I was captured to stay, became Edenspiekermann’s Director of Text and contributor to our corporate blog.

And there is someone else who was literally found out in the streets: Chuck the plant, our CPO (Chief Photosynthesis Officer).

To be continued!